


A Little Gift

by icarus_chained



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Foreboding, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 03:19:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/389144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vila knows how to walk softly beside broken men. Some of them are even worth it. </p><p>Set in S2, not long before Star One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Gift

Avon had dignity. Everyone could see that. It was sheer, unbreakable, ironic. It was a dignity that smiled at you, quietly, and waited for you to screw up. Everyone saw it. But it wasn't until it shouldn't be there that you _really_ noticed it.

It wasn't until you saw him as a prisoner. It wasn't until you saw him dying of radiation poisoning. It wasn't until you saw him drenched after all but dying under the ice. It wasn't until you saw him hand a gun to a man who wanted him dead. It wasn't until you saw him stand up, over and over again, to a man who would cheerfully wipe that smirk off his face _permanently_. It wasn't until you saw them try to break him, that you realised how quiet, immovable and all-pervasive that dignity really was.

Vila realised it. He'd realised it pretty early on, actually. There were only so many people on a prison-ship who could afford dignity that unassailable. It was the kind of dignity that made people attack you. The kind that made them want to break you. And there were only so many kinds of men who could have been sent to Cygnus Alpha with that kind of dignity still intact. Either Avon was a man who believed he was getting out of it, or he was a man who simply did not care anymore, empty or ruined behind the quiet, but too proud to ever show it. Of the two, the latter was the most dangerous. And of the two, the latter was what Avon had turned out to be.

There were ways to deal with men like that. The first, and most preferable, was to simply avoid them. Vila didn't get that option. The second, and most common, was to try and break them. Shatter that dignity, and the man will have nothing left. He'll follow you to the ends of the universe. Blake, sometimes, when he was feeling particularly suicidal, seemed to veer awful close to that one. And Vila could have told him that was a mistake. The kind of dignity that makes it through Federation interrogation intact is not the kind of dignity that breaks to give you what you want. It's the kind of dignity that breaks as it _kills_ you, that takes you down with it in the most emphatic way possible. Without it, the man has nothing left. Without it, the man is perfectly willing to die.

Then there was the third way. Vila's way. A way he'd perfected after years of prisons and re-education centers, after a lifetime of walking softly beside broken men. Soft. That was the key. Be soft. Be malleable. Be laughable. Let them have their dignity. _Feed_ their dignity. Give that damaged, deadly pride something to stand on, something to stand over. Let them have what keeps them sane, what keeps them alive. It's not so high a price, after all. And some of them ... some of them deserved it. Some of them deserved that little gentle gift. Some of them deserved to be proud.

Avon was one of those. Vila hadn't thought so at first. Avon's pride was hard and vicious and quick, and it struck at every weakness that showed around it. _Every_ weakness. When Vila'd first known him, he'd thought Avon just like every broken bully he'd ever met. Someone worth contempt, even as you cowered. Someone worth silently laughing at, even as you set yourself up to be the butt of the joke. Someone worth sneering at behind their back, even as you whined and let them strike you. Someone like that. But Avon wasn't.

It had taken him a while to see it, granted. That did annoy Vila, sometimes. He prided himself on always seeing what needed to be seen. In his line of work, it was damned important! But Avon ... It was that damned dignity. So proud, so sheer, so completely transparent, that Vila had never noticed that behind it, Avon was laughing. So clear that Vila had never noticed that _Avon saw it too_. That rich, black humour. That hard-edged grin. Avon knew what he was. He knew. And that was rare. That was all but impossible. Because the dignity was a shield over something broken, and to keep it intact, men lied to themselves that they had not broken at all. They pretended fiercely that they were someone worth dignity, worth pride, and never, _never_ looked beneath. Never. But Avon did. And Avon ... found it funny.

That's what made Avon worth it, for Vila. That's what made the dignity more than a lie, more than a desperate defense. That's what made it worth feeding, worth protecting. Because it was real. Because Avon could see it, and know it, and laugh at it, and dignity that is not tarnished by laughter is the only real dignity in the world. Vila knew that. It was how he'd held on to his own.

Then too, was Avon's strange caring. His strange understanding that some -not many, but some- people were worth letting keep their own dignity. Cally. Avon was always so careful with Cally. Reigning back that deep-set instinct to strike at every opportunity. Jenna, too, though that was almost a game between them. Jenna struck back, and Avon liked that. Gan ... Vila smiled. Avon had never really know what to think of Gan. And Blake ... but best not to go there. Blake struck too hard, and too accurately, and Avon had never really stood a chance against him.

And himself. Vila. Not like the others, though. It was different between them. Because Vila _let_ Avon strike. Deliberately. And struck back, but only gently. Only softly. Avon had a dignity that made people want to break him, made even his friends want to break him, want to knock him back and prove to him, just for a moment, that he was as human as they were. That he was as flawed. None of them realised that, behind that fragile, unbreakable dignity, he already did. He already knew. Except for Vila. And maybe Cally. But that's because they were good at reaching what people didn't want them to reach.

So Vila played the game. He played the fool, set himself up, let Avon take his shots. More than that. He'd taken to inserting himself when Avon tangled with the others, when Avon went up against _Blake_ , taken to saying something stupid, something cowardly, something sly. Just so Avon was never completely lost. Just so that magnificent, hard-won dignity would never take the fall so many people wanted. Just so Avon could lash out at him, could sneer and belittle and hold himself straight against everything that wanted him to bow. Just a small thing, really. Just a little thing, for a man like Vila, who'd survived by making people laugh at him. But for a man like Avon, for a man whose dignity was all he had left ... it was everything.

And the best thing, the very best thing, was that Avon knew that, too. Vila could see it. He'd seen it the first time he'd tried for something more, the first time he'd screwed up courage and hope and humour, had put on a scared and hopeful face, and asked Avon if he could curl up at his side in the dark. Just a little company, that was all he wanted. Just a little comfort. Was that so much, when he kept Avon's strength alive?

Avon had smiled, and let him in. Avon had been gentle, and demanding, and careful, and played the game like he was giving Vila a gift, like Vila should be grateful for his magnanimity, but when Vila looked up at him, looked at the laughing, broken man behind the shield ... there'd been a smile. A quiet little smile. Because Avon had known. Avon had understood which of them was being gentle, which of them was giving the gift, which of them really had control. Avon had known, and understood, and let Vila take what he wanted anyway. Because as long as Avon could keep his dignity, there was nothing else he wouldn't let you take. Because as long as he could have that shield, he'd let you do what you wanted to the ruin beneath it. He'd known, all along. He'd known Vila was manipulating him. He'd let him.

Sometimes, that was a scary thought. Sometimes, in the dark, listening to the quiet breathing of the deadly man at his side, that's one of the scariest thoughts Vila'd ever had. Because you couldn't _fool_ Avon. Avon had looked at the ruin inside himself, looked his own broken spirit, and _laughed_. You couldn't break someone like that. You couldn't control them. You could only kill them, in the end, and Vila didn't want to do that. He didn't. Call it sentiment, call it cowardice, but he just didn't.

Then again, in a galaxy with Blake, in a galaxy with Servalan, in a galaxy with Travis and Federations and prisons and rebellions and the tenuous thread of a broken man's loyalty ... Somehow, Vila didn't think he would ever have to. Somehow, he didn't think he'd get the chance.

So for now, for as long as possible, he'd give a broken man his dignity, and steal a little comfort and a little joke, and curl tight against Avon in the dark, and let tomorrow kill them if it wanted to. He'll have had this first. He'll have stolen this first. And Avon, silly, damaged, laughing Avon, will have let him, and maybe loved him a little for it, and smiled a little smile of thanks. And it will have been enough. Tomorrow, when they die. It will have been worth it.

He just hoped, in some little way, Avon might think so too.


End file.
